


R 



:17 




The Street 
OF Precious Pearls 



by 



Nora Waln 




NEW YORK 

THE WOMANS PRESS 

1921 



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Copyright, 1921, by 

National Board of Young Womens Christian Associations 

of the United States of America 



DEC 15 1921 ©CU631533 



•-Vv^ 



To Grace Coppock, who first encouraged me to go 
into the Far East, I owe deep gratitude. 

From the women of China I have learned that 
World Fellowship is not alone an intellectual con- 
cept but a natural law in accordance with which 
the hearts of all women throb to the same rhyth- 
mic beat of the Universe. 

To the women of America I dedicate this story 
of the life of my Chinese friend and teacher: it is 
as accurate as she with her small store of English 
words, and I with my limited knowledge of her 
language could make it. 



CONTENTS 

I 
Wherein Yen Kuei Ping turns off from the Big 
Horse Street to make purchases on the Street of 
Precious Pearls . . . . . . . . . 7 

II 

Wherein there is a wedding and Kuei Ping be- 
comes a member of the family of Chia . . . 19 

III 

Wherein there is a departure from family cus- 
tom and Kuei Ping goes with her husband to 
live in Peking 31 

IV 

Wherein a son is born and there is great rejoic- 
ing 41 

V 

Wherein shadows throw their length across the 
tidy courtyard 49 

VI 

Wherein there is deepening sorrow .... 55 
5 



VII 
Wherein the heart of a woman is occupied with 
one desire 61 

VIII 

Wherein Kuei Ping prepares for a pilgrimage . 65 

IX 
Wherein there is patience and tenderness and 
understanding and a return to a little home 
village , 73 

X 

Wherein twenty-seven slow years are added one 
upon another 81 

XI 

Wherein the narrator becomes Kuei Ping's pupil 
and is filled with wondering questions and is 
witness to a dream come true in its threefold 
parts . . • 91 



Wherein 

Yen Kuei 

Ping turns 

of from the 

Big Horse Street 

to make 

purchases 

on the 

Street of 

Precious 

Pearls 



TURNING off from the Da Mou Lui or 
the Big Horse Street, the name common 
to the main street in Chinese towns and vil- 
lages, there is to be found, if one seeks dili- 
gently for it, the Street of Precious Pearls. 
Always it is a side street. Often it is so 
narrow that two sedan chairs cannot pass. 
At those times of the day when the shadows 
are long there is no golden sunshine reflected 
from the cobblestones that pave the street. 
But I have found, for I like to visit the little 
shops on side streets, that the more precious 
jewels glow with a warmer brilliancy when 
the day outside is dark. 

It is the street of greatest importance to 
every Chinese girl. On it will be bought her 
dowry jewels. Ancient custom rules that the 
betrothed bride shall convert the wealth she 
inherits from her father's household into pre- 
cious stones. And so it is here on the Street 
of Precious Pearls that her inheritance is 
spent, lest by bringing money, as such, into 
her husband's household she reflect upon the 
ability of her new family to support her. 

Yen Kuei Ping sat passively quiet as her 
chair-bearers turned into the street at a low 
spoken word from her grandmother. She 
was third in the procession. Madame Yen 
rode first, directly behind the house servant 
9 



who walked ahead, breaking a way through 
the crowded Big Horse Street and into the 
quieter Street of Precious Pearls, crying, 
"Lend light, lend light." Next to Madame 
Yen came Kuei Ping's mother, and bringing 
up the rear was a fourth chair in which was 
carried a distant relative, by name Chang 
An, who held a place in the household a trifle 
higher than that of a trusted servant. 

Following the swaying tapestried box-like 
chairs that marked the presence of her 
mother and grandmother, Kuei Ping leaned 
forward in her seat, peering through the hori- 
zontal aperture in front of her with brighten- 
ing eyes. The Street of Precious Pearls was 
quiet and cool. Moss clung to the bases of 
buildings and the grasses that had ventured 
up through the paving stones were worn away 
only in a central path and in patches in front 
of entrance ways. Now and then someone 
came from beneath one of the heavy curtain- 
like doors that closed a shop, and slipped 
along the silent street, but the padded shoes 
of the pedestrian made no noise on the grass- 
covered stones. Here was a peace and quiet 
akin to the hush of the Mission Church, 
Kuei Ping caught herself thinking, and then 
flushed at what she thought her irreverence 
in comparing the gorgeous pageantry of the 
10 



procession as she saw it silhouetted against 
the dust-dulled gold lacquer of the shops with 
the aesthetic simplicity of the Chapel. 

They had traversed more than half the 
entire length of the street when Madame 
Yen's chair came to a stop before a shop with 
rich filigree carvings and double entrance 
doors of heavy velvet with brass frames. At 
the sound of their approach, two attendants 
of the door stepped forward and swung it 
wide, that the chair-bearers might carry the 
ladies into a tiny inner courtyard before they 
need dismount, saying as they bowed, "Hon- 
orable ladies, enter the humble shop." There- 
upon, the narrower inner curtains of the shop 
itself were held open and Madame Yen and 
her relatives, bowing low, returned the formal 
greeting and passed within. 

At the entry of customers, numerous clerks 
and underlings, so it seemed to Kuei Ping, 
swarmed forward with greetings and formal 
offerings of stools upon which to sit and with 
cups of tea to drink. The head of the shop 
and his partners flicked their long-stemmed 
pipes from sleepy lips and rose, as though 
from deep meditation, struggling a bit with 
the light that would penetrate into their eyes, 
even in the darkened room, as they bowed, 
11 



offering the courtesy of "the miserable place 
to the pleasure of their honorable guests." 

The eldest among them with his own hand 
took from an attendant each cup of tea as it 
was brought and offered it with a low bow to 
his guest. Kuei Ping, lifting her gaze now 
and then from the floor, caught a glint of joy 
of the coming bargain in the corners of the 
shrewd old dealer's mouth and in her grand- 
mother's eyes, even in the midst of courtesy 
and greeting. 

Rich jewels were brought forth, for Kuei 
Ping's own grandfather was a well known 
silk merchant and the coming alliance with an 
oflicial family was not beyond the knowledge 
of Wong Lui, dealer in jewels. Madame Yen 
gave but a sweeping glance to the first display 
placed before her. Kuei Ping had slipped 
into the barckground, but her mother and the 
relative looked over the jewels and then up 
at Madame Yen as if to agree that they were 
not worthy of attention. Wong Lui held- 
various secret conferences with his head 
clerk, and boys slipped away into dark re- 
cesses to bring forth rarer treasures. Ma- 
dame Yen iind her daughter preferred pearls, 
and from the mysterious caverns of the shop . 
they were brought. Exquisite gems, each 
wrapped separately, were removed from 
12 



their covers and glowed in a wondrous heap 
on the dark velvet cover of the teakwood 
table. 

Kuei Ping liked rich warm color but she 
liked it best subdued in the luminous pearls. 
She was a favorite with her grandmother 
and this preference was no secret to Madame 
Yen who placed her chair, now, as the hour 
grew on, that Kuei Ping might get the full 
value of the beauty of the fabulous heap. 
Carefully, one by one, the preferred gems were 
separated from those of lesser beauty by the 
two women. And still at intervals, as though 
he had just awakened to some almost forgot- 
ten knowledge, Wong Lui would cease caress- 
ing his drooping moustaches with his slender 
hands and wave a clerk away to bring even 
rarer treasure. 

But all things come to, end in time and 
these mysterious errands grew farther and 
farther apart and finally ceased. Wong Lui 
had placed his best before them. Kuei Ping 
from under her modestly lowered lashes 
caught glimpses of bright eyes that glowed 
from the darkness of the inner rooms, the 
curious little clerks and underlings who 
peered through the dividing parchment, 
eagerly following the tableau in the center of 
the shop. 

13 



Not until the selected heap was before her 
did Madame Yen speak of price and then only 
as a question. Kuei Ping had seen her grand- 
mother bargain before and so she scarce drew 
her attention away from the lustrous heap of 
jewels even to listen. Wong Lui, too, was 
seasoned at the game which both dearly loved 
and so with the skill of chess players they 
moved slowly, each toward his goal, each 
carefully measuring the other's power to yield 
from his quoted price. At intervals, when 
the conflict might have grown a trifle sharp, 
cups of tea were served. 

Kuei Ping, resting her eyes upon the pearls 
so soon to be hers, drank deep draughts of 
their beauty. Impelled by their drawing 
power she gathered a handful of them up in 
her soft pink palm, unmindful of the bar- 
gainers but not unnoted by them. The quick 
eyes of each had counted the number and the 
face of Madame Yen had softened as she 
looked upon the girl. Wong Lui had noted 
that also and put it down in his favor in the 
game before them. 

The girl, holding the jewels thus in her 
hand that she might feel their nearness, saw 
them glow into warmer color as she held 
them, as though her touch breathed life into 
them. In after years she was to think often 
14 



of the care with which they had been selected 
and to pay homage in memory to the experi- 
ence and knowledge which made possible that 
rare power of choice, for even Wong Lui, 
seasoned dealer in jewels, had shown respect 
for Madame Yen's judgment. 

With a suddenness so abrupt as to make 
her feel she must have jerked physically, Kuei 
Ping was back in memory, as she was so 
often these days, at the little mission school 
where she had been sent when she could go no 
farther in lessons with her brothers at home. 
This too had been an indulgence upon the 
part of her family, gained by her nearness to 
her grandmother. 

It was grctduation day. This was the 
memory she conned over most often. Kuei 
Ping had stood first in her class and when the 
exercises were over she had stolen away into 
the garden to bid it a last farewell, with the 
small remembrance reward that had been 
given to her clasped in her hand. Ever since 
that day Kuei Ping had worn it next her 
heart. She could feel its hard edge now as 
she sat holding the pearls. In memory the 
fragrant perfume of the la France roses at 
the end of the walk drifted out to her again, 
she recalled the crunching sound Miss Por- 
ter's stiff foreign shoes had made as she came 
15 



down the path, and the tenseness of the prin- 
cipal's voice as she had spoken, asking Kuei 
Ping to come and sit in the arbor and talk 
with her. 

From the first day Kuei Ping entered 
school she had worshipped the tall golden- 
haired American girl in the shrine of her 
heart as an Angel of Freedom. While they 
sat in the arbor she had held Kuei Ping's 
hand in the foreign way. Kuei Ping thrilled 
to the memory of that touch more than to the 
glow of the pearls. Miss Porter built for the 
girl who listened at her side that afternoon, 
a dream bridge of words that connected the 
road of Kuei Ping's life witlj that strange 
land called the United States, where men and 
women had equal opportunity, and from 
which the JZhinese girl with her brilliant mind 
trained to new ways might return to give 
service to her own country women. Kuei 
Ping had held her breath lest she lose a word 
while Miss Porter talked, quiet at first, car- 
ried away by the marvel of the opportunity, 
then very still because she knew its impossibil- 
ity. For at the spring holidays Madame Yen 
had told her granddaughter of the plans for 
her marriage and had given her the engage- 
ment gifts from the Chia household that had 
16 



been kept these two years now, waiting until 
she should be finished with school. 

Her family loved her. Kuei Ping had 
known that from the first moment she opened 
her eyes and smiled into her mother's face. 
They awaited her return home and her fulfill- 
ment of their plans for her. There were ties 
that bound her a part of the whole which 
made up the unit of her family, bonds that 
could not be pushed aside with the brusque- 
ness that made possible the spirit of freedom 
that lit the eyes of the American girl. And 
yet it was this spirit of freedom and of service 
in the wider ways of life to which she had 
built the secret shrine within her heart. It 
was a hard conflict, but Kuei Ping's decision 
was reached before she had lifted her quiet 
eyes to thank Miss Porter and say that she 
could not go. 

The latter had been a trifle curt. Kuei Ping 
had wept bitter tears over it since, because 
she had failed the person she admired most 
in all the world. The utter futility of at- 
tempting to make East and West understand 
each other had stilled her lips from any shar- 
ing of her feeling about her home, or any 
repetition to her grandmother of the conver- 
sation in the garden. The engagement brace- 
lets in the bureau in her mission school room 
17 



and the silver honor medal beneath her dress 
were each sacred things that belonged in 
separate parts of her life. 

Madame Yen reached over now to Kuei 
Ping for the pearls she had taken from the 
table, that they might be put in the same case 
with the others. The bargain was closed. 
Fresh cups of tea were brought forth and re- 
fused, Madame Yen and her relatives saying 
over and over as they were bowed out, "We 
have squandered your valuable time," and 
Wong Lui and his attendants begging them 
not to waste their breath in courtesy for his 
humble shop. 

Outside, the chair-bearers, trained to pa- 
tience by long hours, waited. 



18 



Wherein 
there is a 
wedding and 
Kiiei Ping 
becomes a 
member of 
the family 
of Chi a 



WHEN Kuei Ping was a child of six, 
playing at games with the little cous- 
ins who dwelt in the Yen compound, or teas- 
ing to learn to read with her brothers, sooth- 
sayers, upon examination of a document from 
the house of Chia, had found that her destiny 
was entwined with that of Chia Fuh Tang, 
ten years her senior. With care the grey old 
man, whose judgment Madame Yen trusted, 
had taken the card upon which were drafted 
the eight characters indicating the year, the 
month, the day, and the hour at which Fuh. 
Tang had entered the world and, comparing 
them with the similar characters of the girl, 
had returned a favorable report of the auspi- 
ciousness of the union. With deliberation 
and due patience he had compared the com- 
bination of their characters with each of the 
five elements, metal, wood, water, fire and 
earth, to make sure that in the proposed mar- 
riage there was no destroying omen such as 
the uniting of wood and fire. He next dis- 
covered that the two cyclic animals that had 
presided over the birth of the youthful couple 
were not at variance with each other. 
Thereon it was ascertained that the two 
would abide together in harmony. 

Later, the Imperial Calendar being con- 
sulted as to the black and yellow days which 
21 



would govern the lives of the two, a second 
document was sent from the house of Chia, 
informing the family of Yen that the four- 
teenth day of the month had been found to be 
the day most favorable to the conclusion of 
an engagement and asking that, if found 
agreeable to them, a return document, setting 
the month, be returned. Fate had already 
decided the month as the second of the Chi- 
nese calendar year by causing the girl to be 
born under the sign of the tiger. The cul- 
mination of the alliance had waited but the 
year to be set by the contracting families as 
the eighteenth spring of Kuei Ping's life. 

The month, corresponding to April on the 
western calendar of that year, came with a 
touch of summer on its breath. Soft rains 
fell early. From the wind-dried earth sprang 
a carpet of velvety green. By the middle of 
the month brown-green orchids had pushed 
out to the light, azaleas and the wild wisteria 
were opening buds, the yellow mustard scat- 
tered gold over the country-sides, and the 
southeast wind was languid with the sicken- 
ing sweet perfume of the purple soi bean. 

Kuei Ping, wearing the heavy wedding gar- 
ments in which she had been dressed, felt near 
to suffocation in the close room. Yet she 
shuddered as from a chill when Chang An, 
22. 



having put the finishing touches to the mar- 
ried way of hair-dressing, placed the vanity 
case before her, urging the girl to teach her 
own fingers the arrangement. 

The old woman felt the shudder and the 
tense strain of the girl's body as she fastened 
the tiny buttons of the collar of Kuei Ping's 
dress. Looking down at her she said ten- 
derly, *'Be not alarmed, little flower of our 
hearts. Thou needest have no fear. Look 
but into the mirror at thy beauteous face be- 
fore the veil is dropped over it. What man 
living could pass by the fire of thy deep eyes 
untouched ! Look now, as I hold the veil of 
pearls before thy eyes, and see that they out- 
rival the lustre of the gems. Even thy hands 
are shaped like the petals of the new opened 
lotus, and thy grace is as exquisite as that of 
the wind-swayed blossom. Take the incense 
burner and make thy heart a lake of peace 
upon which thy beauty may float with the 
serenity of the flower thou dost resemble." 

Kuei Ping, gazing deep into the mirror as 
into a wondering dream, reached out her 
hands for the many-wired burner Chang An 
brought ere she left the little bride alone. 
Slowly, one by one, the girl smoothed out the 
twisted curves until the interlacing grooves 
were one continuous whole in which the in- 
23 



cense burned before the Goddess of Mercy 
without a break. 

The hours hung heavy upon her. Over the 
door that closed her from the feasting came 
stray bits of gossip. She heard the click of 
ivory dominoes as the dowagers gambled at 
sparrow. The plaintive call of stringed in- 
struments came to her as from a great dis- 
tance. Now and then, as a minstrel took up 
the refrain, she caught the words of some old 
love song, or heard repeated in chant the 
valor of a departed family hero. 

The clamor outside grew greater and then 
subsided into the murmur of conversation. 
The one o'clock feast had passed. The 
shadows of late afternoon sank into darkness. 
A servant came to light a taper beside her 
mirror. Chang An returned and put the 
finishing touches to her toilet. Her mother 
wrapped the long band of red satin around 
her head over the new hair arrangement 
signifying that they bound her to the will of 
the family to which they sent her. Madame 
Yen with loving fingers placed the inner veil 
of red chiffon and then dropped over it the 
veil of pearls that had come the day before 
from the bridegroom. The long strip of red 
silk carpet was laid by servants that she might 
go to kneel before the family altar and then 
24 



be placed In the waiting sedan chair without 
touching her feet to the polluting ground. 

The time of departure was near. The 
rooms and courtyards in which she had lived 
were strangely unfamiliar with their elabo- 
rate decking in honor of the event. Heavily 
veiled and her eyes lowered, she felt rather 
than saw the crowded mass of her relatives. 
The minstrel took up the wail of separation 
and loss. She heard the tossing of the four 
cakes which were to bring luck to her family, 
and the rattle of the sieve placed over her 
wedding chair to ward off evil spirits as she 
was sealed Into it. 

The journey which she must make in dark- 
ness began. Ahead of her, almost a mile 
long, the procession of her attendants went. 
Sitting strained and still she could hear the 
clash and clang of brass cymbals, the shifting 
of burdens from tired shoulders at regular 
Intervals, and now and then, as she strained 
her eyes, the flare of waving torches. Half 
way to the end of the tiring journey the noise 
increased, and she gathered that they had 
been met by members of the bridegroom's 
family. Dull red balls of light swung above 
the entrance gates. Her chair was borne 
through the double rows of the procession 
which had preceded her and set down In a 
25 



reception room. She heard the murmuring 
words of good omen uttered as she was 
helped from her cramped seat and out onto a 
second strip of red carpet that led to the part 
of the compound that was to be hers. 

Kuei Ping saw Chia Fuh Tang for the 
first time in one swift stolen glance from be- 
hind her veil. He stood with his back to her 
as she entered the doorway. In that glance 
she knew that he was taller than her father, 
that he wore a long mandarin garment with a 
square of heavy embroidery in the center of 
the back, over which a black queue hung; she 
saw the flash of a jewel in the front of his hat 
as he turned toward her. Then she must 
lower her eyes to the floor where his dark 
slippers made a spot of contrast with the 
bright carpet. 

He canve forward to meet her. Kuei Ping, 
hidden beneath the concealing veils, was led 
forward a few steps by her attendants. Then, 
as custom dictated, both sat for a few minutes 
side by side. Kuei Ping, still wrapped in the 
long veil that reached to the hem of her wed- 
ding garments, too weary to stand alone, 
leaning upon Chang An and another attend- 
ant was then led forth to kneel with Fuh 
Tang before the family altar in worship of 
heaven and earth and to make low obeisance 
26 



before the Chia ancestral tablets. Here 
Chang An lifted the edge of her veil that she 
might drink with the bridegroom from a gob- 
let of wine ere she was led back into her room 
to dress for the wedding feast. 

Her tired nerves seemed almost to snap at 
the continued twang of the stringed instru- 
ments. Chang An cooled her hot brow with 
calming hands as she took away the heavy 
veils and helped to dress her in the lighter 
dainty pink garments from her trousseau 
chest. And Kuei Ping, remembering that 
Madame Yen had told her that Fuh Tang 
too had attended a foreign school, and the evi- 
dences of ill ease he had shown in the ordeal 
that had passed, wondered whether he knew 
of the western custom of personal choice, and 
stilled her own trembling with the realization 
that he had not seen her as yet. 

Fuh Tang saw her first thus, with tender- 
ness and something akin to pity in her eyes, 
when he came to sit and wait for the serving 
of the feast. Food was placed before them 
but custom forbade the bride to eat or sleep 
for three days. She must sit with downcast 
eyes, her face immovable while the feasting 
about her went on, the target of all eyes, the 
subject of ribald jokes. Long hours passed 
again in which she had need of all the pa- 

27 



tience gained with the little incense burner. 
They left as a memory the odor of heavy 
perfume that came from hot rooms, the clat- 
ter of chopsticks and bowls, the glimmer of 
many-colored robes and the glitter of jewels 
of the men guests, strangers and relatives, 
who came in an almost ceaseless stream dur- 
ing that first twelve hours to gaze upon the 
beauty of the bride. Their remarks burned 
as a searing iron across her consciousness. 

Two more days the feasting lasted. 
Women kinsfolk of the family who had not 
met together for many months, gossiped and 
drank tea, adding color to the women's side 
of the large compound with their rich gar- 
ments of brocade and satin. Some of them 
swayed on small bound feet with a "golden 
lily" glide. They went about examining the 
chests of wedding gifts, commenting upon the 
hundred and twenty boxes filled with gar- 
ments and linens, discussing the charms put 
here and there to bring good luck. 

In the other side of the vast dwelling place 
the men drank wine and made merry, their 
long-skirted garments of silk in seafoam 
green and saffron and deep blue, and their 
chains of amber and jade and the settings of 
diamonds and pearls on their hands and in 
their hats outdoing the vivid glory of the 

28 



women's dress. Here Fuh Tang went at in- 
tervals to offer hospitality in food and wine, 
and to joke with his guests. 

On the morning of the third day Kuei Ping 
came forth to find the guests for the most 
part dispersed, to worship at the ancestral 
tablets with her husband, to make low obei- 
sance to her honorable new mother and father 
and the elder relatives, and to show her 
respect before the household Kitchen God. 

Thus Kuei Ping became an integral part 
of the family of Chia. 



29 



Wherein 
there is a 
departure 
from family 
custom and 
Kuei Ping 
goes with 
her husband 
to live 
in Peking 



MOONLIGHT on which the white mag- 
noha flowers floated as birds about to 
take wing, filled the courtyard and touched the 
town with a magic of pale green gold. Kuei 
Ping could not sleep. She lay wide-eyed, fol- 
lowing the pattern that a moonbeam made as 
it filtered through the parchment window. 
Unable to resist longer the call of the path 
of Hght she slid from her bed to the floor. 
Cautiously pulling about her the long gar- 
ment that lay waiting for the morning, she 
crept through the door of her pavilion into 
the courtyard. Still holding her slippers in 
her hand she listened for sounds of others 
awake. From the rooms of her honorable 
women relatives came only the rhythmic 
breathing of deep sleep. 

She passed safely out of the women's divi- 
sion of the compound, stealing through the 
intricate lacery of courtyards and curious- 
shaped gateways, stopping to dabble her fin- 
gers in the waters of a fountain and then, at a 
disturbed quack from the pet heron who 
stood sleeping with one foot drawn up be- 
neath him, she sped carefully away. Her 
shadow mingled with that of the flowering 
magnolia trees as she slipped from place to 
place like a long-caged bird trying its wings 
in newly gained freedom, stooping now over 
33 



the fragrant heart of a rose, brushing gently 
the stiff little potted evergreens that stood in 
a row at the base of the spirit screen, turning 
back to feel the velvet of the purple iris, hold- 
ing up her hands to let the full-blown wisteria 
petals flutter through them. 

From over the walls came a mysterious 
groping after expression from the strings of 
some blind wandering musician. It vibrated 
on the heart of Kuei Ping, calling her beyond 
the confines of the compound she had entered 
as a bride two months earlier. Square across 
the entrance gateway, placed so that evil 
spirits flying in to bring disaster would be 
flung back, stood the high, many-colored spirit 
screen guarding the household, while it slum- 
bered, from disaster. Her hand still touch- 
ing the familiar potted trees on the inner side 
of the screen, Kuei Ping crept around it. No 
sound save that of irregular snoring came 
from the gatekeeper's house. Her fingers 
trembled as they sought for the open link in 
the chain that held the bar across the outer 
gate. A wild rose that had clambered up 
beside the gateway and dared to cross the bits 
of broken glass that made more impassable 
the top of the wall gave her courage. Noise- 
lessly she slid the bar and stood without the 
compound. 

34 



How soft the dust felt beneath her feet as 
they touched it for the first time. Pilgrim- 
ages she had made with her honorable 
mother-in-law to pay respect to the ancestral 
hall, to worship at the temple of Buddha, and 
to ask after the health of Madame Yen and 
her household, but it was not fitting that the 
new bride should soil her feet upon the com- 
mon ground. Chair-bearers came within the 
courtyard to bear her forth upon those 
journeys. 

Leaning back against the wall, Kuei Ping 
drew a deep breath of air. Now near and 
now far away the music called. Thither 
along the road to his former place in the 
world of other affairs Fuh Tang had returned 
six days after their marriage. Above her 
head the wood-rose nodded in the breeze. 
Men went out and beyond. Women in that 
far-away land from which Miss Porter came, 
walked, too, in similar paths of freedom. 

She looked up at the venturesome rose. It 
wafted down fragrant perfume. On her 
questioning mind came a consciousness of a 
change in the music — loneliness and a vague 
hunger that died away in a vibration of de- 
spair. There came upon the heart of Kuei 
Ping an overpowering sense of walls that 
stretched along the dusty hutung, closing in 

35 



upon the lives of uncountable women. Even 
the roots of the wood-rose held her body 
within the compound. With cold hands and 
eyes blinded by tears she put the bar back in 
place. Her feet caught in the skirt of her 
long mandarin robe as she stumbled back into 
her room. 

The morning would bring its round of 
regular hours in which she, the wife of the 
eldest son, would continue her lessons in fam- 
ily duties, ready to take the burden when it 
should fall from the ageing shoulders of 
Madame Chia. 

The noon of the day brought its difference. 
Kuei Ping sat on the folded rug at the feet of 
her new mother, putting tiny stitches in a 
piece of satin embroidery, when the sounds of 
welcoming voices came from the outer court. 
The wome'n's conversation about small house- 
hold affairs was stilled as they heard the gate- 
man repeating the name of Fuh Tang, and 
the other servants take up the cry, "You 
bring us unexpected joy by your presence, 
most gracious master." A needle prick from 
which a drop of red blood stained Kuei Ping's 
embroidery was the only trace of excitement 
the quiet little bride showed as she rose to 
greet him with his mother. Within her there 
fluttered a hope that he had come upon this 
Z6 



unexpected visit in answer to a call from her 
heart. She breathed a prayer of thanksgiv- 
ing to the Goddess of Merciful Gifts that she 
had been given patience to perform the tasks 
of the day in quietness, and that she had 
donned for the afternoon the most becoming 
of the wisteria silk garments from her trous- 
seau chests. The wistful light in her eyes 
changed to one of sure gladness as they met 
his. She heard the explanation of his coming 
as put into words to their most gracious 
mother, but Kuei Ping knew without words 
that he had come because he loved her. 

Throughout the week and on into the next 
Fuh Tang lingered. The full moon had be- 
come a waning quarter, making the lighting 
of the many-colored lanterns in the courtyard 
necessary to turn it into a fairy land at twi- 
light time. A messenger came calling him 
back to his post, and Madame Chia, fearing 
family dishonor, urged upon her son the 
necessity for immediate departure as soon as 
the next day should dawn. 

Kuei Ping, bringing back to the gracious 
mother the household keys with which she 
had been entrusted to dole out the next day's 
supplies to the cooks, heard the last words 
of Fuh Tang's reproval. 

It was in the courtyard, where the scat- 
Z1 



tered petals of the blown magnolia flowers 
were bruised under their feet as they walked, 
that Fuh Tang told Kuei Ping that he must 
return upon the morrow to his waiting work. 
His voice had trembled as he spoke, and Kuei 
Ping, crushing consciously beneath her tiny 
embroidered slippers the blossoms that had 
seemed to dare to float out to freedom and 
then had dropped in a withered mass on the 
paved courtyard, had begged him to let her 
go with him. He had stayed his steps, 
startled at the suggestion. His calm hands 
folded into opposite coat sleeves, he had 
listened with ears that could not believe they 
heard aright. 

Fuh Tang did not depart when morning 
came. The orders of an Emperor waited. 
The elders of the two august families of Yen 
and Chia 'met together to bring wisdom to 
the minds of the two young people who con- 
templated so drastic a departure from family 
custom. Separately and together they were 
called before the family tribunal. Faithfully 
and completely until now both of them had 
submitted to the rules of tradition; mechani- 
cally and faithfully they performed the small 
duties given them now. Kuei Ping listened 
to the daily words of her grandmother with 
reverently bowed head and modestly lowered 
38 



eyes. Words were futile, for no one among 
the women spoke to let her know if by chance 
they understood. 

In humiliation Kuei Ping's heart was 
lighter than ever before. She knew that Fuh 
Tang would not depart without her. His 
younger brother was dispatched to fill Fuh 
Tang's too long neglected orders. 

In early autumn they left the protection 
and the guidance of their families in disgrace. 
Love for each other, so strong that it broke 
down old barriers to personal freedom, set 
them out upon the road of life a unit separate 
from the complex life of the compound. Fuh 
Tang, appealing to the principal of the school 
he had attended, secured through him a posi- 
tion as clerk with the British consul at Peking. 

In the Tartar City just west of the entrance 
to the Forbidden City they found a small 
dwelling place. 



39 



Wherein 
a son is 
born and 
there is 
great rejoicing 



FROM the time of Kuei Ping's earliest 
memory she had known that among her 
people the crown of womanhood was the 
bearing of a son who would perpetuate the 
name and the virtue of his ancestors. Feel- 
ing the first stirring of a new life entrusted 
to her, she was filled with joy in the privilege 
that was hers, a joy that was at times almost 
overpowered by the fear that she might fail 
in fulfillment of that trust. Daily she went to 
the temple of the Merciful One begging the 
Goddess of One Hundred Children to grant 
unto her a male child. 

Other women waited in the temple also for 
their turn within the prayer gate, buying fag- 
gots of incense to burn before the altar, drop- 
ping gifts of money and touching infants' 
shoes to the hem of the Goddess' robe. At 
times, in these new days of life in the small 
courtyard where Fuh Tang had founded their 
home, her thoughts turned to those earlier 
teachings in school, precepts from the foreign 
Bible. Kuei Ping had even whiled away idle 
hours, while she waited for her husband's 
return from his duties as clerk, by reading the 
translation her teacher had given her. But 
now in her time of greatest need she turned 
back to old familiar ways of worship through 
which her mother before her had reached 
43 



toward an unknown power, behind the wall 
of earthly life. 

Carried by the devious ways of tongue 
and ear, by which news can travel the length 
of an empire without need of telephone 
wires, the knowledge of Kuei Ping's hopes 
reached the heart of the Yen compound. 
One morning as she walked with Fuh Tang to 
the outer gateway, Chang An stood request- 
ing admittance from the gateman. She offered 
no explanation of her coming save that Ma- 
dame Yen could no longer give her shelter 
and that she had come to them for a roof. 
Thus without loss of face on the part of her 
elders Kuei Ping was given the comfort of 
an older woman. 

Under the busy fingers of the two the gar- 
ments prepared for the child grew to a need- 
lessly large' heap. Kuei Ping, eager in her 
preparation, made tiger caps and sewed bright 
buttons like eyes in the toes of shoes that she 
knew in her thoughtful moments were in sizes 
large enough for walking children. Chang 
An gave suggestions as to the cutting of in- 
numerable padded coats and long hooded 
caps for winter, and for the scanty garments 
of bright red for summer. Together they 
made ready the cradle of peach wood that the 
child might be rocked safely into a long life. 
44 



Twice during the last days of waiting Miss 
Porter, visiting a friend in the city, came to 
call upon Kuei Ping. Once the friend, a mis- 
sion doctor, had accompanied her. This ac- 
counted for the stiff white foreign skirt that 
fluttered before her eyes as Kuei Ping strug- 
gled back to a full consciousness of the room 
and its surroundings. 

No joy in anticipation had prepared the 
young mother for the wonder of the babe as 
it lay nestled within her arm. Watching with 
languid eyes the quick deft movements of the 
foreign woman as she made the bed more 
comfortable, and beyond her the familiar 
figure of Chang An lighting the tapers of the 
Lamp of Seven Wicks to warn disaster from 
the new-born son, Kuei Ping slipped into a 
dream in which her child grew up to see both 
East and West and interpret the best of each 
to the other. 

The months that followed were rich in 
happiness. Winter melted into spring. 
Flowers bloomed in the courtyard. Street 
vendors came each morning with great 
bunches of long-stemmed violets. On starUt 
evenings Fuh Tang carried his little son out 
into the courtyard where they sat talking of 
their happiness and his future. 

It was on a late afternoon when fruit hung 
45 



ripe on the hawthorn trees, and soft autumn 
breezes swayed the leaves of the moonflower 
vine that the sturdy baby made his first at- 
tempt to walk. Fuh Tang and Kuei Ping, 
both leaving him to stand in Chang An's 
hands, moved away, a double inducement for 
him to take his first step. Intent upon the 
child they did not hear the sound of a guest 
entering the courtyard gate. Daring at last 
to make the venture, the baby toddled into 
Fuh Tang's outstretched arms, and it was not 
until he stood holding the child that they per- 
ceived their aged father, Chia Sung Lien, 
looking in upon them. 

Fuh Tang, going each day to his duties at 
the office of the British consul, brought back 
news of the events of the outside world, but 
Kuei Ping, her life full to overflowing in her 
love for h6r husband and child and occupied 
with the tasks of making the slender income 
supply the daily needs of the household, had 
scarce realized that men outside were at war. 
The news that the father bore them brought 
close the realization. Fuh Tang's only 
brother, dispatched more than a year ago to 
fill his place in ignored orders, had fallen in 
battle under General Tso in a vain attempt 
to defend the city of Pingyang from the 
Japanese. 

46 



The aged man's eyes followed hungrily the 
movements of his sturdy grandchild, while 
they brought him a chair and tea and offered 
the courtesies due to age from youth. He 
took from his pockets gifts to the little son 
who held out his baby hands, unafraid, to 
receive them. 

When the women and child had retired 
into the house and Fuh Tang sat with his 
father alone in the gathering twilight the old 
man spoke of the need of a man child to 
carry on the traditions of the Chia household, 
to give rest to the departed dead and minister 
to the spirits of those who wandered in the 
unknown beyond. He spoke almost with fear 
of the sonlessness of the brother who had 
gone, and he asked that the little grandson be 
returned to his rightful place in the family 
even if his parents must pursue a foolish and 
selfish desire for freedom. 

Bowed with a heavier sorrow than when he 
entered, with even the shadow of dread lurk- 
ing in his eyes, Chia Sung Lien turned back 
from his fruitless errand. Youth with its 
new spirit of freedom had refused to place 
upon the altar of old tradition its most pre- 
cious gift. 

Fuh Tang and Kuei Ping, talking the mat- 
ter over alone, had come to know that each 
47 



believed that if their ideal for their son was 
to be realized he must live his life in the freer 
atmosphere of their own home. 

Untouched by the near tragedy in the lives 
of his elders, little Bo Te played happily with 
the pearl charm Chang An had hung from a 
silver chain about his neck. 



48 



Wherein 

shadows 

throw 

their 

length 

across 

the tidy 

courtyard 



FUH TANG lay ill. The heaviness upon 
his chest grew more and more. Kuei 
Ping, straightening the fever-tossed coverlets, 
knew that the charms of the medical man who 
had been summoned had no power to heal her 
husband. A great fear laid hold of her— a 
fear that drove her out into the icy night 
alone. No chair-bearer came in answer to 
her frantic call and the slender means of the 
household did not support a private chair. 
Bending her head to break the force of the 
wind she struggled somehow to the door of 
'the mission doctor who had eased her own 
pain a year ago. With bare fists she pounded 
against the gate for admittance; in staccato 
breaths she cried out her need to the sleepy 
gateman. 

The old man who opened the door told her 
that the doctor had been away since early 
evening. Many people were ill and the for- 
eign doctor took no rest but he would tell her 
the instant she returned. 

Kuei Ping refused to come inside and wait. 
The lonely return through the streets had no 
terror for her equal to the fear that Fuh 
Tang might call for her and find her gone 
when he wanted her most. The doctor came 
into the little courtyard, weary from a long 
day and night without sleep, just as the first 
51 



feeble rays of dawn lit the sky. The doctor's 
weariness seemed to drop from her like her 
outer garments as she began work upon her 
patient. Noon-day showed a marked change 
in his breathing and evening found him sleep- 
ing quietly. 

Knowledge and careful nursing brought 
Fuh Tang back to life again but never again 
did he recover his old strength. A slight 
cough persisted long after spring was with 
them and Fuh Tang had returned to his 
work, a cough that grew more frequent as 
summer came on. All about them men and 
women and little children died of such coughs, 
blinked out like candles after five or six years 
of slow burning weariness. He did not speak 
of it to Kuei Ping but a great dread came over 
him which grew into a weariness that made 
work alme)st impossible. He did not have the 
disease, thus Fuh Tang argued with himself, 
his fatigue was but the result of his long ill- 
ness, yet some foreboding kept him from 
going to a foreign doctor to confirm his be- 
lief that he did not have it. 

It was then that he began to smoke a long- 
stemmed pipe. Just a few whiffs of opium 
quieted his nerves and gave him pleasant 
dreamless sleep from which he woke rested 
and ready for work. Upon his salary the 
52 



daily food for his family depended. In leav- 
ing the family compound the two had become 
in reality a separate economic unit. Fuh 
Tang's earnings, plus some money he had 
possessed at the time of their taking the small 
home in Peking, had been sufficient for only a 
very simple mode of life. During his illness 
his pay had come regularly. For this Fuh 
Tang was grateful, but he grew anxious lest 
he be unable to perform his daily tasks. 

At first short smokes gave him relief from 
worry. Just one on the w^ay to work in the 
morning stilled the desperate growing pain 
in his chest, seemed even to still his coughing. 
Then as the months went by, the amount 
needed for relief grew greater. He came to 
have a hunted desperate look in his face if he 
did not get the opium at the usual time. The 
smoking made necessary his leaving home 
earlier than formerly if he was to keep from 
Kuei Ping the knowledge of his fear. He laid 
the first stone in the barrier which grew up 
between them when he did not share with her 
his anxiety. Kuei Ping, carrying her second 
child, was more sensitive than in normal times. 

The frosts of late autumn had turned to 

dried husks the beauty of the garden. Was 

it to be so with their love which had begun 

with such happiness ? Thus Kuei Ping found 

53 



herself questioning day after day. Even little 
Bo Te did not seem to call unto himself as 
much of his father's attention as formerly, 
yet he grew more fascinating every day, his 
mother felt. 

Fuh Tang, fighting the weariness that crept 
further upon him, came to leave the shelter of 
his home with a sense of relief. Outside he 
could smoke and let down under the strain pf 
pain and the necessity to struggle against his 
growing absent-mindedness. 

Thus the first shadows of a wall of doubt 
separating Kuei Ping and Fuh Tang cast their 
length across the tidy courtyard of their 
youthful love. 



54 



Wherein 
there is 
deepening 
sorrow 



KUEI PING'S second son lived but a few 
hours. Chang, preparing the burial 
rites, sobbing her grief and disappointment 
even as she summoned the soothsayer to ex- 
amine the Imperial Calendar for the lucky 
day upon which to place the small body in its 
coffin, felt utterly baffled by the quiet passive- 
ness of the mother. It was to Fuh Tang that 
she must turn for every decision and whom 
she must help to still his grief while the mes- 
sage requesting burial in the Chia family 
burial grounds was written and dispatched 
by messenger. 

It was Chang An who placed the mirror 
above the door of Kuei Ping's room, hoping 
that it would change the evil that had entered 
the house into real happiness. It was she who 
procured the blue papers to paste upon the 
entrance gateway announcing a death within 
the compound. It was she who tied about the 
neck of the deceased child two wisps of cotton 
wool in order that he might bear away the 
misfortune of the family and save it from a 
too numerous brood of girl children. 

Chia Sung Lien, fearing that this may have 
been a frustrated attempt by his younger 
son to come to the aid of his family by re- 
entering the world through the body of the 
child, returned with the messenger to make 
57 



sure that the soul be given the most careful 
attention, and that the burial rites be at- 
tended with more elaboration than usual for 
a baby. 

To Kuei Ping the weeks and months that 
followed were one long weary night-mare. 
By day she haggled with tradesman and food- 
shop keepers over the price of a bit of cloth 
for garments for Bo Te, over shrimp for 
soup or vegetables and rice for food. At 
night she lay shivering under the coverlets, 
listening to the restless tossing of her hus- 
band, kept awake by her own thoughts and 
his loud breathing. 

Fuh Tang sank lower and lower into the 
lethargy of opium smoking until one day he 
returned home to announce that the British 
consul had no more work for him that 
season. He no longer strove to hide the use 
of the drug from her, his only desire was to 
get it. Day after day he sat dreaming his 
colorless dreams while she struggled with the 
problem of keeping a roof over their heads, 
one by one pawning their possessions until 
little save the bare walls remained. 

These walls, closing in upon her daily, be- 
came menacing shadows at night. Bitterly 
she condemned her own blindness in believing 
58 



that she had hoped to find freedom In this 
way. 

Thus the poison of the poppy stilled into 
pleasantness the dreams of Fuh Tang and 
the poison of selfish despair did its work 
upon the heart of Kuei Ping. 

Meanwhile the winds grew colder and 
winter came upon them. 



59 



Wherein 
the heart 
of a woman 
is occupied 
with one 
desire 



KUEI PING, struggling against the sense 
of walls that shut her off from life and 
any understanding of it, spoke quick words of 
rebellion when Chang An urged upon her a 
more frequent attendance at the temple of 
Buddha. Borne in upon the heart of Kuei 
Ping came a desire to pierce through and be- 
yond the walls that menaced her, to force her 
way through the shadowy darkness she could 
no longer tolerate and find the way to the 
light of which Miss Porter had spoken in 
early morning chapel long ago. 

In her earlier times of need she had in- 
stinctively turned to worship of the Merciful 
One, but now she could force her blinding 
eyes to see nothing save the smirking smile on 
the face of the lacquer god. The routine of 
prayers seemed but a mockery; the burning 
of incense faggots before the fat squatting 
creature but added to the ugliness of his al- 
ready over-smoked and oily figure. Peace 
she no longer brought upon herself in the 
temple, because peace was no longer what 
she wanted. 

Out and beyond herself and all of the 
women of her race she wanted to go, out to 
find and serve that God whom she had heard 
called the God of Life and of Light. Turn- 
ing through her slender book of translations 
63 



from the western Bible she marked, as she 
read, all the phrases which called her out to 
service, marked them until they stood in 
bold relief upon the pages overshadowing 
with their prominence all the other words. 

Little Bo Te played unheeded at her feet. 
Heavier and heavier upon her husband sank 
the evils of consumption, and it was to his 
long slender pipe he turned feverishly for 
relief from pain and doubt. 

UnHt, the candles of the house furnished 
no glow for those who dwelt within. 



64 



Wherein 
Kuei Ping 
prepares 
for a 
pilgrimage 



KUEI PING made her preparations for 
departure carefully and quietly. She 
put into the parcel of clothing only the barest 
necessities, leaving the warmer garments and 
her dowry pearls, which she had still clung 
to even when everything else of value had 
been sacrificed for the use of the others of 
her household. She made sure that there was 
a fair supply of rice in the house and that 
Chang An had prepared some in readiness 
for the morning meal. She wrote a short 
note telling of her departure. Then she 
steeled her heart against entering the room 
where her husband and little son lay sleeping. 
It was better thus, she told herself, that she 
should go away in the night without any fuss 
or staying of steps. She knew that she must 
go if she was to find the truth for which she 
sought, and the desire to find it was the con- 
trolling motive of her life. What she had 
left of material things would last until the 
news of her departure reached the Chia com- 
pound. Then they would call Fuh Tang back 
with eager voices to the ease and plenty of his 
family, and he would take the little son with 
him. Kuei Ping felt that it was right that he 
should, but she knew that if she was to hold to 
that resolution she must not enter the room 
for one last look at the sleeping boy. 
67 



It was night, the second time in her life 
that she walked through the city streets alone, 
but she felt no fear. They led her to free- 
dom. As she passed from the dusty court- 
yard and through innumerable hutungs on the 
outer side of grey walls, she was filled with 
a longing to tell the women shut within those 
walls of what she had learned and why she 
went. Lanterns hung at gateways threw out 
feeble rays of light along the narrow passage- 
ways. Turning into Hatamen Street she 
found a sleepy chair-bearer who carried her 
out to one of the farther city gates. There 
she dismissed him, for she sought peace and 
quiet in which to prepare for her new life of 
service. Shut within the walls of her home 
she could make no plans. A guard lay asleep 
at one of the gateways leading to the top of 
the city wall. She passed by him unnoticed 
and found a secluded spot on beyond an over- 
looking watch tower. 

Here in the quiet above the city she prayed, 
seeking for knowledge. A gentle dew 
seemed to moisten the parched earth as she 
waited. Then there came the hush of nature 
that precedes dawn. A faint touch of gold 
appeared in the sky behind the purple 
western hills. The gold was shot with rays 
of flame color that melted into warm amber 
68 



which became softened around the edges with 
lavender and wisteria shades; then in the 
ever-changing heavens amid the glory of 
color rose the sun, complete in its magnifi- 
cence, giving Hght unto the entire world. 

Kuei Ping stilled her prayer to gaze in 
wonder at the beauty of the sunrise and then 
to look down upon the city as it roused itself 
for the tasks of the day. What she saw were 
but familiar things in a new light. She saw 
an old man taking down the shutters from his 
shop. She saw the dark lurking figures, the 
petty thieves and marauders of the night, 
slink away through side alleys, and in their 
places came the familiar traveling restaurant 
with its bowls of steaming morning broth. 
She heard the restaurant carrier's voice 
mingled with the call of the hucksters from 
the country. She heard the feeble cry of a 
waking baby. Over the wall in the compound 
just below her she watched a little lad patting 
earth about a leafless plant with his two hands 
while an amah urged him in to eat his morn- 
ing rice. 

Kuei Ping turned to her worn book to read 
again the words of Jesus as He had told of 
the Father to all those who had eyes to see 
and ears to hear. She read of love and of 
patience and of understanding for the trials 
69 



of others and of forgetfulness of self. Pa- 
tience and quiet which she had thought of 
until now as attributes only of Buddha she saw 
welded into the personality of the Son who 
had come to dwell on earth that those who 
sought Him might know more of his Father. 
Her vague longing for knowledge and for 
service became a desire to live as He had 
lived, simply and lovingly sharing whatever 
knowledge was trusted to her as He had 
shared with those of his own household and 
the small section of the world where He had 
dwelt. 

Below her within the city she saw not only 
dusty walls that shut out the light, but lights 
too which shone from within. She came 
down from her morning of prayer no longer 
crying out for freedom. Freedom she had 
gained through forgetfulness of self. She 
was filled with a deep abiding sense of joy as 
she went back through the awakening streets 
to her own husband and child. 

Bo Te had crawled down from his bed and 
sat in the corner of the room playing with the 
broken bits of the little ivory idol Chang An 
had kept hanging about his neck. He reached 
out eager hands to his mother asking her to 
fix it again. She held him close, a song of 
happiness throbbing in her heart. 
70 



Fuh Tang still lay in the stupor of drugged 
sleep, but as she leaned over him she saw in 
his blue-lined face something of the price that 
he had paid for her freedom thus far. For 
the first time she saw the real contrast be- 
tween him and the handsome gallant man 
who had loved her enough to break down the 
walls of custom for her and sacrifice his own 
career to earn her bread by daily work. She 
saw him not as a destroyer of her trust, but as 
the victim of circumstances which had been 
too great for both of them until now. She 
saw thus now because she measured their love 
not by her need of him, but by his need of her. 
She read, too, in the repeated calls from his 
household for their return more than just the 
desire to enforce old traditions. She felt 
something of the weight of the household 
burdens upon the tired shoulders of Madame 
Chia, and the patience and understanding 
which it required to keep life going on 
smoothly and happily in a home. And she 
knew that according to custom it was her 
duty, as the wife of the eldest son of the 
family, to relieve Madame Chia and to be 
ready to take her place when she should be 
called to the world beyond. 

She saw her path of service within her own 
small world first in ministering to those who 
71 



had need of her and then perhaps out through 
them to others. 

With an abiding peace in her heart Kuei 
Ping unfolded and put back in the familiar 
pigskin chests the garments she had prepared 
for her pilgrimage. 



72 



Wherein 

there is 

patience 

and tenderness 

and understanding 

and a 

return to 

a little 

home village 



A PROCESSION of three sedan chairs 
made its way along the Big Horse 
Street of Kuei Ping's home village. It was 
the time of the Feast of Lanterns. Made in 
shapes of birds, and fish with great eyes, and 
cocks, and little houses that spun round and 
round when they were lit, some large and 
some small, they decorated the shops and 
hung in front of entrance ways, or dangled 
from sedan chairs. Bo Te, riding with his 
father in the front of the procession, cried 
out in glee over each new display or shouted 
in pure ecstasy over the firing of a particu- 
larly loud bunch of firecrackers. The street 
was packed with slow-moving holiday makers 
and with vendors who cried their wares and 
made sales in the midst of traffic, so that Fuh 
Tang spoke to the chair-bearer in the lead 
asking him to go through the more quiet 
Street of Precious Pearls and connect with 
the hutung on the opposite side. 

Kuei Ping rode second in the home-bound 
procession. Chang An, following behind, 
leaned forward and raised her voice to re- 
mind her of the day, which seemed so long 
ago now, on which they had come here to buy 
Kuei Ping's dowry pearls. The street, too, 
had its decking in honor of the holiday, dainty 
lanterns of dull gold decorated in red hung 
75 



before Wong Lui's close-shuttered doorways, 
and lovely ones shaped like bright colored 
autumn leaves decorated a shop farther down 
the street. 

The chairs wound out of the Street of 
Precious Pearls and on through the streets 
along which Kuei Ping had passed on her 
wedding day. Then she had gone in dark- 
ness, wrapped in heavy veils, toward a life of 
unfamiliar things. To-day she came through 
the same streets again to the Chia compound, 
conscious of joy in her coming, filled with a 
deep gladness that she had a place there. 
Her husband seemed to gather new strength 
as they passed through ways he had known 
in boyhood. 

Chia Sung Lien with his household met 
them at the gateways to the family dwelling. 
Shining with happiness, the old man bade 
them welcome and begged them to accept his 
apology that the honorable mother could not 
meet them at the doorway too, but that she 
bade them come to her pavilion with haste 
that she might greet them. When the formal 
greetings were over Chia Sung Lien took his 
little grandson about, showing him the won- 
ders of the courtyards, bringing out for his 
delight the little secret boxes of play treas- 
ures saved from his own boyhood, figures 
1(i 



carved of ivory and of ebony, coins which he 
had saved from pocket-money years ago, 
letting the child hold the pet birds upon their 
perching sticks, showing him the purple velvet 
carp and the silver and gold fish in the fish 
pond, and exhibiting him to all the old ser- 
vants of the household and to all the relatives 
who came to call. 

Joy and love radiated through the vast 
dwelling and were reflected in the passive 
faces of all who made their home there. Kuei 
Ping came to realize almost as a revelation 
the gentle respect for each other and the care- 
ful consideration of the group as a whole 
which were absolutely essential to the life of 
the compound. What she had at first 
accepted as natural, then struggled against 
as a barrier to life, she came now to see in a 
truer light and to value that which was best 
in it. She saw with new eyes the patience 
required upon the part of Madame Chia to 
keep the household running smoothly and 
happily. The old woman, now no longer 
able to go about, directed affairs from her 
great bed, dividing duties and favors among 
the daughters-in-law of the family who again 
divided them among the other members of 
the house. 

Going to visit within her own girlhood 



dwelling, Kuei Ping, from out of her brief 
experience, came away again marvelling at 
the smoothness of her grandmother's plans, 
and the care with which her mother had been 
taught to carry on the family rites after Ma- 
dame Yen should go on to the life beyond. 

Both families accepted with quiet respect 
Kuei Ping's feeling about the God in whose 
service she now lived. If they felt her mis- 
taken they did not speak of it. The duties of 
attendance upon the family altar and the 
dropping of daily rice before the Kitchen God 
were continued by the widow of the deceased 
son. Kuei Ping came in turn to see beauty 
in the regularity with which they served as 
they believed, and the patience with which 
they lived. 

In the dimly lighted courtyard under the 
familiar magnolia trees she walked with Fuh 
Tang. His steps were slower now. On the 
branches above their heads hung lanterns for 
the festival, through the latticed windows of 
the rooms about the court warm home lights 
glowed, from the kitchen court came the 
sound of servants chattering as they finished 
the tasks of the day, then above the other 
noises rose the shrill voice of their son. They 
stayed their steps to listen. He was telling 
the other children of the compound about the 
78 



courtyard in which he had lived with Father 
and Mpther and Chang An and an old gate- 
man all by himself, telling them about the 
big city that is Peking. And of the wondrous 
procession which he had once seen there 
when Father had lifted him upon the wall 
that he might get a far-away glimpse of the 
Emperor with lots and lots of banners and 
men going with him. They heard him say 
that when he grew up he was going to be an 
Emperor and ride along a golden road at the 
head of a big procession. They heard him 
shout that he would if he wanted to, when 
the other children mocked his dream with its 
impossibility. They heard Chang An bear 
him away to bed. 

Fuh Tang's eyes twinkled with humor as he 
looked down at Kuei Ping. She laughed back. 
The barrier that had seemed to separate 
them was down. True, the walls of the com- 
pound that had pressed in upon their earlier 
freedom were about them, but Kuei Ping saw 
them now only as encircling walls of stone 
and mortar. 



79 



Wherein 
twenty-seven 
slow years 
are added 
one upon 
another 



THE years that followed were but the 
melting together of the pearls of Kuei 
Ping's life. They held the gems of joy and 
of sorrow. She took up again the task of 
learning from Madame Chia the ways of 
household management, observing as care- 
fully as possible the honorable mother's 
wishes, coming to love her for her patience 
and her ability. She went often during the 
remaining days of Madame Yen's life to the 
bedside, sometimes reading to her grand- 
mother from the Book of Life she had re- 
ceived from the West, sometimes listening 
quietly as the old lady told her bits of wisdom 
she had learned from her own living. 

The second of the new years within the 
compound gave to Kuei Ping a baby girl. 
Fuh Tang, growing steadily weaker, bright- 
ened with the coming of the gentle little child. 
Kuei Ping watched him as he played with the 
baby and let a hope grow in her heart that he 
would be well again. The entire household 
came to share that hope. A year passed in 
which each of the days was a glorious promise 
of more. 

Then the end came suddenly in a short 
spasm of suffering. When it was over Kuei 
Ping could not feel that Fuh Tang was 
83 



finished with life, but that he had passed on 
where there was no more of earthly suffering. 

The long days that followed bore their 
pain of loneliness. The sleeves of his gar- 
ments hung so empty and lay so still as she 
folded them away. Bo Te cried piteously for 
the return of his father. Stilling his cries and 
lulling to sleep the little daughter, Kuei Ping 
felt herself to blame that she had wanted 
freedom and perhaps had bought it with Fuh 
Tang's life. Then there came over her a 
great thankfulness for what he had given her 
— the right to come and go as she chose 
through the compound door, two children to 
guide in their wanderings beyond it, and a 
love that seemed nearer now than it had since 
those days when the weariness had first begun 
to come upon him. 

Her days were different from those of the 
women whose homes joined hers along the 
hutung only in that she had greater personal 
freedom and that she sought to live by the 
pattern of the life of Christ. The duties were 
the same round of daily household tasks. 
Time and time again she found it hard to live 
as near like the Master in kindliness and love 
as the women whom she knew who still wor- 
shipped in the old familiar ways. But as her 
daughter grew older she was tenfold thank- 
84 



ful for the little she had learned of Christian 
faith and of the place it gave to women. 

While Kuei Ping's children were small she 
taught them, gathering about her each morn- 
ing, as her uncle had done before her, all the 
children of the compound. She followed in 
her lesson plans the same teaching of nature 
from the plants in the garden, the same be- 
ginning of five written characters from the 
old classics each day, but to the worn book of 
Rites she«sadded the parables from the book 
of Christ. A dream grew then, — to found a 
home school in which all the children of the 
neighborhood who would, might come and 
learn not the western way of life, but the 
home way enhghtened by the teachings of 
Jesus. 

Almost miraculously she and her little vil- 
lage passed untouched through the Boxer re- 
bellion. Perhaps it was their smallness that 
saved them from the destroying hand of the 
fanatically-crazed men who sought to save 
their country as the center of the universe, 
complete in itself, and to drive out all other 
influences. Kuei Ping likes to think of it as 
a modern miracle. 

But the fall of the Manchus and the com- 
ing of a Republic so cut down her means that 
the little school had to be pushed back again 
85 



into the realm of dreams after it had grown 
to a reality with twenty day students. One 
entire side of the home had been used for the 
plan. Now only a few rooms of the com- 
pound were Kuei Ping's even for dwelling 
quarters, for other Chia relatives came seek- 
ing shelter. Their official incomes shaved to 
a mere pittance, the fatty places in which they 
had squeezed more than twice their earnings 
taken away, the piteous flock did not know 
what else to do. 

It was then that Kuei Ping faced the prob- 
lem not of dividing what she had with others 
but of earning for her own children their 
livelihood and of preparing them to fill the 
place in life which she had so blithely planned 
for them. Again her thoughts turned to the 
West where women knew how to do things 
with which to earn money. Bo Te, now 
called by his school name Kwan Wa, begged 
to give up his education and to seek for work. 
He had only two more years of study before 
the completion of his chosen course, and as he 
had been offered the opportunity of a scholar- 
ship she refused to consider the suggestion. 

It was then that she began to teach for- 
eigners Chinese. Miss Porter, to whom she 
went with her problem, sent her the first two 
pupils. She found two rooms in a section of 
86 



a courtyard near enough to the mission school 
for her daughter to attend classes with other 
girls of her own age. The expenses of her 
life were small, her group of private pupils 
grew larger and as she came to earn even a 
httle more than she needed, this she added to 
a tiny growing heap of savings. Bit by bit she 
revived again the hope that when her son had 
finished his education she would build her 
school. As a part of this growing plan she 
held as capital the string of pearls bought so 
long ago. The jewels, treasured as they had 
been through each period of vicissitude in her 
life, had come to have an intrinsic beauty 
which strengthened her desire, to use them 
where they would luminate the lives of 
others. 

The affairs of government rocked above 
her head. She was conscious of them but 
they did not shake her determination to se- 
cure the title to a part of the old home where 
her maternal grandmother had spent her life, 
to be used for her school. 

Then her little daughter fell ill of fever. 
Long months of nursing made her better but 
the foreign doctor urged the seashore and 
Kuei Ping again delayed her school plans, and 
took from her savings. 

Kwan Wa's marriage and an opportunity 
87 



to begin the school came in the same year. 
His work for the year took him to Muk- 
den and his salary was sufficient to make 
her earnings unnecessary for the family 
needs. 

He, too, shared her plan for the home 
school and widened that dream to a plan 
that they should build near it a church for 
the worship of the Christian God whom they 
sought to follow. 

It was a joyous day when Chia Kuei Ping 
at last saw the dream again a reality. No 
new buildings were built. The old compound 
in which her mother had lived before she was 
married was large enough for a part to be 
used as a dwelling and a part for classes. 
Each overlapped the other so that they were 
one — a home where education and living are 
one and the same. 

The plan grew more rapidly than she could 
well manage alone. Then she discovered a 
man and his wife, childless, followers too of 
this new religion from the West but members 
of another of its man-made branches, who 
wished to help. They came to her to add to 
her teaching staff, giving their time and their 
small income to the project. 

Again as time passed and the word of the 
school and its teachings spread, she found 
88 



that her doors must be widened and her 
pocketbook fattened to make possible the 
needed expenditures. It was then that she 
returned to the task of teaching foreigners to 
speak Chinese, riding the twenty long miles 
to and from her home twice a week to the 
city of Peking. 

A small inheritance came from her father's 
family and this was laid aside as the begin- 
ning of the church she dreamed of building, 
where in a place set apart those who wished 
to enter might find a quiet place for com- 
munion with God. Into this building she put 
her dowry pearls, at last. 

On her fiftieth birthday the people of her 
village laid the corner stone of the new church 
and even those who followed still the ways 
of worship of their fathers lent their hands 
to the building. 



Wherein the 

narrator 

becomes 

Kuei Ping's pupil 

and is 

filled with 

wondering questions 

and is witness 

to a dream 

come true 

in its 

threefold parts 



THE key to new treasure Is often found 
in places unexpectedly near. It was 
midforenoon of a day in early spring. I ap- 
proached the stuffy cubby hole, in which my 
private teacher waited, with lagging steps, 
struggling with the temptation to be finished 
with school for the day. On Hatamen 
Street a fortune teller squatted, reading fates 
with his magic paraphernalia; outside of 
Chen Men an old man in a lantern had 
promised to teach me to paint on parchment; 
there was a temple bazaar on at Lung Fa Fsu 
— a dozen different allurements called. Re- 
luctantly I tapped upon the door several 
minutes late. 

A woman older than my former teacher 
bade me enter. It is the custom in the school 
where I study Mandarin, or official Chinese, 
to change instructors often lest one copy too 
accurately mannerisms in intonation. Per- 
haps had it not been spring, or had I not been 
late we would have conned over lessons for 
weeks and gone no deeper behind the veil of 
passive expression on either face, each of us 
busy with her own thoughts while we droned 
over Chinese proverbs. As it was I had seen 
the official looking document laid upon the 
table and the light in Chia Kuei Ping's eyes 
that told better than words the story of a long 
93 



hoped for dream suddenly come true. Per- 
haps she felt the need in mine. I count it 
among the most precious treasures of my life 
that she did not pass me by with only a drill- 
ing on Chinese proverbs. 

Proverbs are good, but she gave me much 
more. The document she translated was the 
appointment of her son to go to study railway 
transportation for three years in America, 
England and the continent of Europe. While 
she talked, I who could understand only a few 
of her words, caught something of what that 
meant to her and to her people. Through 
her eyes I saw burdens lifted from the necks 
of milHons of overladen men and women who 
with their bodies now make the largest part 
of the transportation service of her country. 
She was not blinded to the long years before 
her son's* dream of an interlacing series of 
freight trains should take their place ; but her 
dream had been fulfilled in his opportunity. 

The days that followed were filled with 
deep joy for me. In the atmosphere of her 
own home Kuei Ping let me know her daugh- 
ter and her four grandchildren. Nestled at 
the foot of the western hills, where seventeen 
generations of her mother's family have 
dwelt, she let me sit at her feet and listen to 
life as it was lived about her. She did not 
94 



still my eager questions, but she shared with 
me what she had learned from fifty-five years 
of life, teaching as simply and as eagerly as 
she taught the pupils of her own school. 

Ancient trees mark cool spots of deep 
green on the bare cathedral-like glory of 
western hills that overlook her village. They 
shelter the ancient temples in which her fore- 
fathers and her neighbors have worshipped 
for many generations. Some are falling into 
decay, but ail have been built with infinite 
care by the hand of man. In the quiet of 
early morning I have listened with Chia Kuei 
Ping to the chant of services in the Llama 
temple, to make which men carried pure 
white marble all the way from India that 
they might have a fitting dwelling place for 
their gods. I have walked with her beneath 
the peaceful shade of wide-spreading trees 
that stretch their branches over the roof of 
a temple where men and women seek through 
worship of Buddha to bring blessedness to 
themselves and their families. She has led 
me beneath the counting board whose legend 
reads "As you live so shall the evils be 
marked against you," through the noisy mart 
of a Taoist temple where seekers after truth 
please their gods by avoiding evil. 

The mountains overlook, and the temples 
95 



surround, her little school and church, the 
former but a part of her ancient family dwell- 
ing, the latter new like her religion. The trees 
that surround it are but slender saplings, Httle 
more than sprouting roots. The simple struc- 
ture of the building has no architectural 
beauty to compare with the ancient temples 
on the hillside. I wonder just a little at her 
daring to place it there. Then from within 
her dwelling comes the sound of childish 
voices singing — the children who are being 
taught what she has learned of life while she 
goes just a little ahead, listening with the 
eager heart of youth for the voice of the 
Father who gave his Son that those who seek 
might learn of Him. Her school is filled to 
overflowing with the youth of her village. 

Parents, too long bound by old tradition 
to learn to walk in new ways, covet for their 
children the luminous light that shines in the 
eyes of Chia Kuei Ping. 



96 



H 21b 81 






>* 







